1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-07-24; Part 5 of 5

the panel thank you what i said as germany in addition to the words sure was in the jail and i just prefer about page two that you probably don't feel is in this context and that's a mistake and you know this was that oh but i did it in terms of the context which i say mr dean came to me and gave me that assurance and i didn't need no independent inquiry and he was doing so because of the urgency stated by mr michel and it has to be

taken is a hat you do and i think there's a similar march of this year and we want our borders that you can within hours in nineteen sixty eight name recognition of that in there yes you do is that

right those are also has to do with a glamorous recognition of what the constitution provides a revelation that the barbers outlets was really that you're going to think that maybe you were like that it was kind of you work do anything

that's good now meghan reykjavik what that many remained as evidence that was with jazz on to protect national security information again you're

welcome as ben the population we'll see you

know robert niles mm hmm do you really well i think that's the problem of the new legal profession these days i think that that basically you have to take this because we're here an unknown

quantity in terms of a conspiracy we had an overt act and the turning over of the secret documents to the russian embassy and tomorrow we have the technique here in the developmental psychiatric pro which apparently in the evening and the experts is so valuable that the cia maintains an entire psychiatric section for that purpose now certainly there is there is ample congressional recognition of the president's inherent constitutional powers to florida foundation for what i said that has to be and

i think oh i think the supreme court said that the search for caesar or whatever it is has to be reasonable and they said that a national security undertaking can be reasonable and i'm very nicely comply with that mr chairman the congress in nineteen sixty eight as said that's nothing contained in the staff section six of private communications act so the constitutional powers of the president to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the nation against then it goes on to protect national security information against foreign intelligence about that what the president was undertaking when he was not undertaking and under this statute he was undertaking it under their constitutional power which you and the other members of the congress recognized

oh yeah it is now when did you know but who we met in medical barrasso our puzzle i believe it was either the death or two days after i returned from a vacation in cape cod one of the one or two days after labor day of nineteen seventy nine ms jarrett i can add up the

various assumptions of your question with regard to the criminality of the active support my advice at that time was that both hunt and liddy had acted pursuant to an authorization and taking into account well no sir he was he was generally under my supervision and eight and that's because that person as a routine not safe now now when i think about so

i'm not sure that the site that this in every case are and these but let's assume that for the sake of argument the fact is as i stated before earlier my assumption is that it is possible to get specific medical and other acts of confidential information through a trained investigator he knows where he's looking for without a law you are the information he gets this is based on a nomination the patient may die without them i don't you know that i didn't know that was a matter of law it exists as a matter of law oh

yeah if you want to stay there well welcome you home but i don't i don't know what you mean by surreptitiously chairman i don't know this from experience that information of this kind is attainable investigators retained attorneys and they came through nurses nurses aides through all kinds of sources and its it's

only beginning ourselves if we didn't if we didn't you were you're using but i would assert that when you record a record in that you can get it without the consent of the nation all about all of the johns and yet it is available on their way i didn't have the courage to go to the police now you can

read the transcripts of telephone conversations to him and it was after john had given me that were like an innocence that job as a pastor i can understand the sublime engine and i'm sure in the allocation twenty minutes that are given the money that we won't cover all week ago we may not politicians alike alike to try to avoid repetition of the points of the book to i like the detail that is used to test evidence or testimony against that of other witnesses witnesses standard traditional legal to a technique and go to a couple of fundamental consideration to it

did you know on the part of june seventeen nineteen seventy two that there was a plan that would be then that there would be executed committee headquarters in the watergate analogies if you have any information that you have twenty years on the day following the rate can see this telephone call where does late may have been the promise of artisan signatures an analysis briefly said that airport police department about this incident because some of the people who had been picked up one of them and it is possession the name of someone who really was a white house employee and that was her

reaction i have been a little bit about the circumstances whatever they happen how many people were involved whether anybody from the white house was directly involved with it and he said that as far as we knew that was the only connection with the white house was just for possession of this fellow's name and we do you may have heard of in the minimum and they wanted to do with the information i made it for amateur phone call i call press secretary i was with the president in florida and told him about that that telephone call because i thought we might be getting some inquiries and what makes an egg i think it is all out they may have been in reverse order i also called mr golson to find out what apartment still was employed at the white house and i'm

actually do that in response to a question from mr zeigler or not but it was in secret he called me and he made i i don't necessarily recollection of a phone call if he did it was after the call from anyone else oh you mean on your information was a call from mr barnes of signatures and some volunteer activity was the car mr zeigler mr paul's injury the newspaper accounts are again yes or to get additional information from the newspaper accounts yes well i learned lessons and one of the people apprehended was an employee of the reelection committee and i don't think it just wants to tell me that previous

previously seen it on the news and i think of it that night and they watch television and the president also nodded apple article topped mr coleman the seventh inning i think that talking in the following day liz flynn into the seventy the number seventy now mr mitchell i don't believe so i heard testimony year that i did i can't recall a conversation are you concerned about a particular entity at additional information you don't lie mr lennon as quickly as possible out line or made missteps that shoot up information he received the general state of circumstances from your personal information on june seventeenth nineteen seventy two or a few days there at this sunday mr coleman on the telephone about this i think that we are called really something else

some other similar businesses and we discussed the fact that a break in in effect bonds name being involved in court being involved in support he told me something about the statement which the mayor elect people are putting out there they are the next day and forget what i do recall we discuss the public statement that was going to be made on the nineteenth out with was monday when it was just seconds on the presidency was there anything other than that i think both of us wondered why were living what you would want a break in there that was the depths of the democrats' fortunes

telling anybody believe that that anybody in that particular of us knew anything with we're not us has policy discusses with the president i'm not a jazz component rutgers attention of the president right now ordinarily it in that way my assumption is that news of that i don't think i did anything else recall on monday i had a meeting with john being made that and we discussed this in any really in terms of two aspects one was the white house and although what am i have been to see if he could get at

solving for our lives was not a white house employee or not what was used that out because that was still a lingering as an open court and secondly it was obvious that this was going to be a campaign issue and i was concerned about knowing everything that i could know so one run similar and the president for putting it back we would be in shape to sit down and talk about its implications and in terms of it being a political issue that personally and i may be in person at that it's me now coming through the

operation for one it was not much that barbara but that's beside the point i think there was a person's body political implications of this and it was a it was a doll shopping and redeemable kind of thing for people connected with the committee real like to have done or the democrats nominate anyway out of boston and certainly the democrats were going to its wait list if that possibly the fact that there might be a white house connection was really the central the central problem in this as far as i was concerned when did you first learn that this was orchestrated people who weren't connecting with this year well my point was integrated

on the evening news are some way so that it i knew right from the first day that there was a literally a cia employee involved in this when european law i don't think that i was there was that warning light on right from adam oh i don't think i knew about libby and his involvement until after being reported back lay down the knob on the nineteenth or early in the report he reported to me that he had a vision go back one expressed my concern and when he came back he said he accomplished

and that he had also talked to people at the justice department police department or somewhere in and and he said me justice department or the law enforcement people anyway were aware that this matter went beyond just the five of those who were caught and that libby was involved in it was just a matter of time before he needed and that was it the close of business the nineteenth or the next stop appoint mr obama's explore as saying goes in this committee that point in time especially what you did with that information at that point and again you that libby was involved as dr berenbaum be just a matter of time that your testimonials now the ceo

he was deeply involved in this situation what did you do with that information the president into politics well i think that's right i believe that this meeting that was held on tuesday morning was hell of my instant senate and all mr mitchell attorney general but for all the way and funding and this was for the purposes of gathering as much information as possible at the top levels and saying what ought to proceed from that what makes that ought to be taken from that point forward several hours they had the information that led he and others in the involvement with the bacon i didn't know whether this was in it

through that in the nineteen nineties i i don't know that as i say i don't have it now what i'm really looking for mr goodman i don't mean it to be an accusatory question this really a western produced relevant information when the president was no cod and all right and then i'm going to speculate on that senators are willing to speculate on julie witnesses because of the fact that

i was here over the weekend as developing information i don't think it is i think that the airlines and that day we're featuring mr mott the democrats filed a lawsuit that day and those that it was a very it was a very muddled picture and it remained a muddled picture as to what really happened who was responsible and that in the cia that was beginning to be talk

about round is lisa four defendants were identified as having had cia and frankly i don't think anybody felt very confident of the information that they were beginning to war your recollection of your letters now what we're asking for me the white house at this time or now you know the rest of the watergate burglars where now many many years immediately like the prison and so many

years ago would you consider them in the presidential campaign you make the president and thirty in the morning three days later writes about water at the climax at that particular point in time there was not a whole lot so are we can look back now through the through the telescope will find site and see a number of things that must have been apparent on the landscape but what we really have for certain that that was a kind of a lingering concern because we didn't know last weekend and now are new and let it wasn't it certainly didn't know where it was

an anti migrant minors far as i was concerned the tale of the crp that was a manageable political prop if the trailer and lead into the white house and that was a much more critical political clout and i was actively concerned that point in time because we couldn't win at that and there were all kinds of suspicions and there was there was a lot of concern that maybe that's where that for la and in your testimony is that during the fight right now beginning again thirty in the morning on june twenty nineteen seventy two well i i don't have any record in my notes of that conversation that england so and i have no independent report and i don't i don't think that's all together reason that was not anything for sure that i was in a

position at a what was in his exhaustive new summer on his desk when he got the work that more at the same time we have had a meeting that morning of mr mitchell the attorney general in this being oh well we pretty much compared ignorance is about listening and agreed to supply company and try and develop additional information now when i met with the president was for a specific purpose i was about to come up to the two conference call on some members of the senate to talk about legislation i needed some decisions and some marching orders from the president on that particular subject and that was something that we could do that that we could handle in that i did not know that tape recordings are being made a presidential conversations during this period that's true and it's a sense of wonder that is the

kick hire anyone other than you and a lot of heating up in his office immediately oh it would be one of the other you have a reason to leave that conversation with not being reported on the state of that i think i saw it on television today interviews do you think that the reason that he went hey david i'm personally

now the president as much concerns and obviously a much broader area of responsibility and my own narrow questions then i'll lose my kids montana's another is that in your mind based on the jockeys that recounts the television coverage in your understanding of the procedures whereby there's a compilation that's just that is why is there the slightest doubt in your mind in nineteen

seventy two dead now but measurable and significant officers in an internet connection with the services injury and review thank you i mean you know that native americans is there a awesome as users or any other indications even get me a presidential election a new york times

these things as best you know this week it still has beans

so the long anticipated appearance of john ehrlichman turns out there'd been worth waiting for former white house domestic she's still has many questions to answer there are five committee members are waiting their turn and the second round of questioning as anticipated among other things around and suggest that the president has a right to commit whatever acts he deems necessary for national security and some alleged foreign threat can be tied to it and elegance as presidential approval of such an act makes it legal however illegal it would be without subsection sen allen doesn't go along with that too and the question regardless of our peripheral business center watergate issue will undoubtedly come in for a lot more discussion john cranmer the tourists at university law center and means johnson former editor pulitzer prize winning journalist with a watchman close watch today session john ehrlichman first day before the senate watergate committee in the opinion mr johnson what's the meaning well we learned or didn't learn

what have i don't think we get any great clarifying revelations out of today's testimony what we got to me seems to be some very interesting atmosphere which goes right to the heart of what would it really a citizen attitude after all not just a series of isolated criminal activities and then suddenly the opening statement kept coming out throughout the day and that is that this administration found itself besieged from within and without i've had to take certain activities to preserve plug leaks ensure the security of the country it's a lot about national security for the fence the president has been making my twenty seconds that i think in the sense of giving the luminaries in the attitude that produce watergate that that helped lead to the cover up and why we're hearing this this really critical confrontation between the two branches of government the legislative and executive it was illuminating it is not answer the final questions by any means we have far

more to go on this instrument and forth that would've said yes when i asked many key questions that's true isn't of john germann and many many things many more things to go well i think there are good to a three days' worth left just among the issues that have not been touched all of either examination of you will cross examination went out and really learn about the meetings letting out with mitchell magruder that led to the watergate break and did the fact helping to call libya to hunt out of the country on the twentieth of june did ehrlichman are deemed to be six the contents of ponce nobody's asked about that about peterson stand in the fight against cancer were going for the grand jury about the executive clemency conversations with colson apartment on the third fourth of january of nineteen seventy three house committees latin ulcers and the president doing watching people of the sheer and finally what about these investigations jordan thank you a lot about them why didn't the president to fire

me pamela some secret that we don't know about development of a setting was one of a lot hasn't touched down there was an awful lot to come to come here they usually ask you this question i was struck by the last two three witnesses including murder victim's testimony dispute is not only some of the eyewitnesses and in some detail even as you sum of things that the president has said martin came on and he disputed a lot of prior testimony of mitchell did the same thing got an impression that there are no bodies inclusion in the city is this just every man for himself as iconic well you know jenner was that one was seen for the end of the hearings where mr othman described a meeting on june twentieth the girl it was right at the break in it and here we have mr mitchell holliman sabina but he was there and jonathan on the rest of a law professor and yet we now know that independently each one of them do something but here they sat down in the meetings like together the

timeline of we're sort of leave all these testimonies one is operating in a vacuum somehow they said he said in fact they compare their ignorance and there is an interesting thread through all of this long long hearings going through that is the point that nobody really wants to know when that knowledge or not they don't want to be told about it you know at some point the best course and who hasn't testified yet has said the obama campaign is about what i know about that we had a number of these sort of then and directness that i don't wanna know about this that he hasn't testified that he said that the other four there's that attitude that don't bother me that these things work their way out then if i know i want to be careful about this but they don't tell me too much and just let it work its way out there was fascinated by that whole lot of questioning by fred thompson as to whether the

president instructed john ehrlichman lucky the e commerce activities under wraps and ehrlichman said no he never was really instructed to do that and what you did that strike you also as rather unusual for him to take that position yeah i was trying to find at least twice that was one of the major points using the cabinet the president the president to a three times and make a certain statement said he didn't give instructions specifically be careful about the plumbers and being careful about any other cia involved and what was it that was back in january and i'm going to the second time there was a contradiction was over whether or not the over by kim is in fact a violation of law not ready to concede that aaron hours without overcoming is also an urban also his reasons for an online edition of prison his lawyer to come up in baltimore on mars i was the virtual things in today's hearings to me there were significant one was the eloquent

testified that in august he told president nixon of the possible involvement that we haven't heard before direct meeting with the president and the second one which is even more interesting against nixon statement that he had told president in march about the elk river bird breast feathers right now the president has said in a statement on may twenty second he learned about it much later in nineteen thirty and the testimony of that also was up to prosecutors knew about this adventurer a monotone and i think that they also threatened with that money and a lot of the people they think that cleveland last word on the president to immediately on receiving this isn't a monocle twenty fifth and of course mr erlichman i think of another before would probably the most combative

witness so yet to become before the before the senators he came to fight again to defend himself and as the questioning continues tomorrow it should get even hotter than most of the gentlemen thank you both very much the day after tomorrow we'll hear the white house response to the committee's subpoenas a presidential traits we know the president has said the tapes won't be forthcoming with the tone of the response explaining why not could determine what the committee goes next is no big deal but i'm going to have to close tonight little personal protection and walk on it doesn't have anything at all to do with the truthfulness of a possible lack of concern in this first testimony is so